Along with the First Reich, the Second Reich, the British Empire, the late Ottoman Empire, and Imperial America, the Kingdom of Italy influenced the Third Reich’s colonialism. However, Patrick Bernhard takes this a step further: he argues that not only did Fascist Italy’s colonialism influence the Third Reich, but that the Third Reich consciously and directly modelled its colonialism after Italian Fascism’s:

Whatever mistrust or racial prejudice may have existed against the Italians, it did little to dampen German interest in Italian settlement efforts. And this interest went far beyond the borrowing of knowledge in relation to the urban planning of settlements. It involved an intense intellectual dialogue, the importance of which for the [Third Reich] can hardly be overestimated.

[…]

Around the world the settlement programme of the Italian Fascists stirred great interest.⁴⁴ In Great Britain, for instance, it was lauded not only for being carried out ‘on the strictest scientific lines’. As its purpose was social and political rather than ‘purely economic’, it also differed fundamentally from anything that had previously been put ‘into large‐scale operation’, the British agriculturalist and director of the Rothamsted Experimental Station, Edward John Russell, said in 1939.⁴⁵

The American Ruth Sterling Frost put it more bluntly: what made Fascist Italy’s colonization scheme so unique was its ‘utopian quality’ in terms of reshaping the nation, she wrote in one of the U.S.A.’s most renowned geography journals.⁴⁶ This fascination with the massive state‐run colonization project of Fascist Italy went so far that British crofters, who wanted to improve their economic situation, asked for permission to settle in Libya as colonists.⁴⁷

In Germany, the interest in Italian colonialism was even greater. From its inception the [German Fascist] movement was deeply fascinated by Italian colonial activity in North Africa. In the Weimar Republic the NSDAP dedicated numerous illustrated articles in their publications to Africa italiana, and at party rallies it presented slideshows of Italy’s achievements in Africa.⁴⁸ The [NSDAP] sang much praise for the modern and orderly planning of Italy’s new colonial cities, lauding their geometric street layout, public buildings, and excellent social facilities.⁴⁹

The ideology underlying the Italian settlement effort resonated with [NSDAP] members, who saw it as an example of how their own racial and expansionist aspirations could be realized.⁵⁰ Clearly, Africa italiana served as a prism through which the German [anticommunist]s entertained their own visions of empire.

The German [bourgeoisie] had been dreaming of a new German Reich and Lebensraum in the East since the nineteenth century, but this vision had remained a distant fantasy. The Treaty of Versailles had forced the cession of large swaths of territory in the East, and this loss had been highly traumatic.⁵¹

With their colonial policy the Italians had managed to at least partially achieve that which the German right‐wing had long sought, thus lending new momentum to German irredentism and expansionist ambitions. The drawing of parallels between Italian colonialism and a ‘German East’ was additionally facilitated by the fact that Poland had long been the object of colonial aspirations for the German [bourgeoisie], as new research has shown.⁵²

The [German Fascists] were quick to grasp the propaganda value of Italian colonial settlement. Touting Mussolini’s ‘brilliant’ successes was not only a way to stir up mass anger about an ‘inept’ Weimar Republic that had ‘acquiesced’ to the loss of German colonies under the Treaty of Versailles. The [German Fascists] also believed that Italy’s violent expansion on the African continent had helped to promote the ‘permanent mobilization’ of the Italian population, one of the key features of [Fascism].⁵³

The Völkischer Beobachter stressed in 1927 that Italy had been at war since the 1922 March on Rome.⁵⁴ In establishing dominion over North Africa, the party newspaper concluded, Italy had instilled a ‘warrior spirit’ in its people.⁵⁵

The beginning of Italy’s massive colonization programme in 1938 was keenly watched in [the Third Reich]. The degree of attention devoted to this programme in [the Reich] is particularly notable because it occurred at a time when, according to conventional interpretations, [German Fascism] no longer viewed Italy as a rôle model.⁵⁶ In this connection older studies often cite events in Austria, which was annexed by [Berlin] in 1938. These studies argue that Mussolini was presented with a fait accompli, leading to disputes between the régimes.⁵⁷

But this narrative suffers from two problems: Recent works in diplomatic history show that Mussolini had accepted Austria as a [Reich] satellite as early as 1936, and spoke of the ‘common destiny’ shared by the two régimes, which he said should trump points of dispute.⁵⁸ Furthermore, at the expert level, the primary sources corroborate the view of continued good relations between the régimes.

Not only did numerous newspapers⁵⁹ and books enthusiastically report on [Fascism’s] successes in Libya and Abyssinia; between 1938 and 1941, more than 20 large monographs were published, among them studies by renowned authors such as Louise Diel, a journalist who published extensively on women as well as on Italian Fascism.⁶⁰ More important, German offices and administrators charged with planning policy for the East started collecting and assessing information about Italy’s colonial activities in Africa.

This included Hermann Göring’s Four‐Year Plan organization, Robert Ley’s German Labour Front (DAF), the German Academy for Building Research (a research unit in the Reich Labour Ministry), the Minister of Agriculture Walter Darré, and, most important, the Planning Department in Himmler’s Reich Commissariat for the Strengthening of Germandom.

The Planning Department of the Reich Commissariat — the central [Reich] organization for planning resettlement in the eastern territories — was headed for years by the young agronomist Konrad Meyer, who became the chief architect of the infamous Generalplan Ost. Meyer also published the planning journal Neues Bauerntum, which carried several richly illustrated articles about Italy’s colonization programme when plans for the eastern territories were still in their infancy.⁶¹

Information on Africa italiana was collected in numerous ways, including the systematic analysis of Italian literature; scholarships to study Italian methods of colonization awarded by research‐funding institutions such as the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (of which Meyer was vice president); diplomatic trips; and scientific fieldwork.

To learn more about Italy’s colonial settlement programme, Wolfgang Spakler, the German Labour Attaché to the German Embassy in Rome, accompanied the first 20,000 Italian settlers from Genoa to their new homes in Libya in the autumn of 1938. There, the young diplomat not only paid a visit to some of the new villages, but also had the opportunity to speak to governor Italo Balbo — a flying ace on friendly terms with Göring — about Italy’s colonial plans.

Immediately after his return to Rome, Spakler sent a report about his journey directly to Franz Seldte, the [Reich’s] Minister for Labour. As Seldte explained, he had a ‘special interest’ in the making of the [Fascist] colonial Empire.⁶² Konrad Meyer also sent staff to undertake fieldwork, particularly in Libya.⁶³ Günter Wolff, one of his closest colleagues, travelled in March 1939 with a delegation of more than 20 German scholars, journalists and Party representatives to Tripoli, where they inspected the ‘settlement work achieved last year’.⁶⁴

While in Libya, Günter Wolff came to believe that Italy’s experiment would go down in history as a model for large‐scale colonization.⁶⁵ Finally, colonialism was so important to the Reich Commissariat that it organized special training programmes for its staff; knowledge on Africa was thus spread within Himmler’s planning apparatus.⁶⁶

The available sources show clearly that the information gathered on Africa italiana was used primarily for planning activities in Eastern Europe. In 1940, Hans Thierbach, a settlement expert at the German Institute for Foreign Relations, another [Fascist] think tank,⁶⁷ wrote:

The enormous colonization tasks facing us in the Eastern territories, and perhaps one day in the African colonies, oblige us to observe closely others’ colonization methods and to investigate their successes and failures so we can provide a critical analysis of their potential. Italy’s experiments are of particular interest to us since [its] Fascist state has many features in common with [German Fascism].⁶⁸

(Emphasis added.)